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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24078205">Longer than I thought.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxfireandRain/pseuds/FoxfireandRain'>FoxfireandRain</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Death, Depression, Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide, descriptions of death, ghost story, tw death, tw depression, tw suicide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:54:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,205</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24078205</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxfireandRain/pseuds/FoxfireandRain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A short story about a ghost lamenting their life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Longer than I thought.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This work contains references to depression, suicide and bodily decay. Please be advised this short story is not for everyone. I have tagged all the trigger warnings I can think of, if you believe one is missing please let me know and I will add it. </p><p>If you are struggling with depression, please know there is free help available.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“How long would it take for someone to find my body?” Is a morbid question I have often wondered. I live alone, I don’t have any close neighbors, I often go days without responding to messages so my friends would be used to that. If I stopped showing up to work, how long before they looked into where I was? Or would they even bother? What about my bills? Nearly all of my bills are automatically withdrawn and my paychecks are direct deposit. How long could my life keep going without me? </p><p> </p><p>I sit on the couch cross legged staring at the ceiling fan to avoid looking at the mess on the floor. My mind running through a macabre checklist in my head. I listen to the clock tick like a metronome and I play at guesses. A few days? A week maybe? A month at the most surely. I consider my antisocial tendencies, my lack of any really close friends, my off the road home. I know I’m just trying to fill time. To distract myself. To avoid the situation. I glance at the clock. It’s only been a few minutes. </p><p> </p><p>I feel the panic begin to bubble up in my stomach. I go through the motions of taking long, slow, deep, breaths. I close my eyes and listen to the clock. Don’t look at it. Don’t think about it. </p><p>Despite myself I open one eye looking off to the side, as if that’s going to shield me from reality. That I’ll see there’s nothing there and I’m just tired. Tired people hallucinate. Sleep deprivation has seriously bizarre side effects- I’m avoiding it again. Like ripping a band-aid off I open both eyes and look at the floor in front of me. </p><p> </p><p>There I am. Blood pooling in the front of my face as I lay face down in my own vomit. The question I had often wondered while sitting depressed eating cookie dough is now an answer I’m forced to sit and see in real time. I always believed in ghosts… Never expected to become one. Time passes terribly slow when there’s nothing to do but sit and watch your own body decay. The only positive thing about this I can even come up with is, at least I can’t smell it. I’m also glad I don’t have any pets to take care of. I would be awful watching fish slowly starve or a cat eat me. I go back to staring at the ceiling wishing this was all just some sort of disgusting nightmare. </p><p> </p><p>The shadows move across the floor as the sun rises and sets outside. My phone rings a few times but it is face down on the table and I can’t pick it up. I assume it is either the regular spam calls or maybe work. What day is it? I can’t remember. I also haven't been keeping track of time. Mostly just trying to distract myself with nonsense.  I wish I had left the TV on or something. I instead watch the bird feeder outside. </p><p> </p><p>My body is beginning to bloat. If memory serves, that tells me at least three days have passed. I think my phone died, It hasn’t rang in a while. It will probably be a few more days before my friends start to wonder about me. Maybe the mail carrier will notice things piling up… except the only mail I really get is credit card offers and other junk, the occasional magazine. I could probably go a month without checking my mail before my mailbox would be full, so, scratch that off the list I guess. I haven't ordered anything online in awhile either so no deliveries to stack up at the door. Damn. I really have isolated myself haven’t I? </p><p>I sit in front of the window and watch the world outside go on endlessly. The bird feeder is running out so they will probably stop coming soon. I watch the clouds and the sun rise and set over and over again. Unable to do anything but watch. My body turns to green, then to red. I won’t go into detail about all the other gross things happening. Of course, this is all completely natural so I shouldn’t say gross but… it really is. The flies seem so loud in this otherwise silent house. </p><p> </p><p>A few weeks have had to have passed by now right? There is no sense of time anymore. Things either seem to drag on, or fly past. My friends must think I’m ignoring them. None of them have come by, but, they aren't really the confrontational type, so if they think I’m ghosting them they wouldn’t just show up and demand to know why. Huh… ‘Ghosting’ I suppose I am. Man, this sucks.</p><p> </p><p>It’s storming outside. I like the sound of the rain. It’s louder than all the nasty bugs in here. I also like the way the partial sunlight makes everything look so bright green. I always liked spring a lot. I enjoy the rain and the flowers. I never cared much for being outside but I liked to look at it through the window with a cup of tea. Simple pleasures I suppose. Things so easy to overlook when you’re alive and have so much stress. I was always so caught up in what I didn’t have, or what I wasn’t doing. I never took a moment to slow down and watch the rain and realize, everything would be okay. I just had to take things one day at a time. I just had to breathe. </p><p> </p><p>Maybe if I had just taken five seconds to think things over like I am now… I wouldn't be decomposing on the floor. They do say people who jump off of bridges regret it as they fall. Maybe that’s just how suicide is. Things slow down right as you die and you realize, this was a mistake. Maybe that’s not how it is for everyone of course. I don’t know what anyone else is going through. I think for depression at least, it will get better. It’s not going to be easy by any means. It’s going to take a lot of work, but once you’ve done the work, and gotten the help you need you can look back and see all your hard work paying off. Not a corpse rotting on the floor. </p><p> </p><p>The police arrive at my home finally to perform a wellness check. I don’t know who sent them, but I hear them talking. It’s been almost seven weeks since I died. I sit on the couch and watch the biohazard clean up crew work. My thoughts can’t help but turn to ways I could have avoided this. Been more actively social with friends, coworkers, family. I could have looked for ways to get help for my declining mental state. Gone to a therapist, tried medication, found a new hobby. All things that would have raised a flag sooner that something was wrong. </p><p> </p><p>I sit here and stare at the ceiling fan just as I did when this all started over a month ago. “How long would it take for someone to find me?... Longer than I thought.”</p>
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